John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

My band has just begun playing together and are starting to record some material, but we are getting really disappointing results. The biggest issue is the drum sound. It sounds like we’re recording in a garage, even though we have 5 mics on his kit (kick, snare, hi hat, 2 overhead condensers). We’ve tried different mics and mic placement but we’re still having no luck. Part of the problem is that we record live, so there is a lot of bleed into the mics. However, when we had him play by himself in the room and recorded it, the sound was pretty much the same.

I’m sure the room itself could use a lot of acoustic treatment work. The sound seems to bounce around quite a bit. It’s a finished basement with wood paneling on the exterior walls. The dimensions of the room are probably not the best, either (29ft 6in by 10ft 4in; 6ft 6in drop ceilings). As you can probably see from the pics, the room is pretty bare. There’s really no room to place a couch or anything to absorb some of the sound. I do have some Auralex foam squares and corner bass traps at my personal home studio, but I would hate to take them down and bring them here. We’ve considered putting carpet or blankets behind his kit to deaden the sound, but we’re not sure if this would do more harm than good.

We’re all pretty new to this and could really use any tips/tricks we can get. We don’t expect amazing results, but we definitely need the sound to improve if we want to record anything reasonable. How would you guys treat the room? Thanks in advance!

Hi "Pentatomic". Welcome.

Please read the forum rules for posting (click here). You seem to be missing a couple of things!

I'm not surprised it sounds lousy! An totally untreated space with very low ceilings is not going to sound good for drums.

There are several things you can do to improve the sound:

First, get the drums out of the corner and away from walls, as much as possible. There is always a large acoustic buildup of bass energy in room corners, so you need to get away from that, plus you also need to put treatment in the corners, so the kit can't be where it is right now.

Second, take out the drop-ceiling tiles over that end of the room, so that you have a bit more space above the drums. Hopefully you can gain a foot or two of space up there, but at the very least it will be a few inches, and every bit counts. Then install thick acoustic absorption up there. Take some photos of what it looks like up there, so we can advise you on what to do, but it won't be thin foam! Likely you'll need to put several inches of fiberglass or mineral wool insulation up there. The purpose is to eliminate reflections from the ceiling as much as possible, and basically make the ceiling seem much higher than it really is, acoustically.

Next, you'll need to build bass traps in at least some of the room corners, and you'll also need some panels on the walls, probably a combination of absorption and diffusion.

And finally, to reduce the mic bleed that you are currently suffering from, you can build "gobos" on wheels to acoustically separate the drums form the rest of the room, to a certain extent.

That room won't ever sound like Abbey Road, of course, simply because of the size, but it certainly can sound a LOT better than it does right now, with good layout and good treatment!

By the way: forget the "carpets and blankets" idea: as you already suspected, that would make things worse, not better, since carpets and blankets do not have suitable acoustic characteristics at all! Fortunately, the materials you do need are not expensive (you can buy them at places like Home Depot), and you can easily build the devices yourself.


- Stuart -

Thanks, Soundman!! Great info. Sorry about missing info and the forum rules . I added my location and will read them more in depth when I get home (at work). I certainly appreciate the advice and am more than willing to comply with all rules, which is the least I can do.

I understand how getting the drums out of the corner can make a huge difference. I'm sure that would help with the boominess that we've been hearing. Our budget is relatively small ($100-200, at the moment). I'm sure we could add more in time, but for now that's all we have to work with.

I'll get the ceiling pics on here asap. Thanks again!

Okay, he moved the drums out of the corner and into the center of the room. That should help quite a bit.




Removing the ceiling tiles, he says there’s roughly 8-12 inches of room.

Great! You have some very good extra space up there. Take out a few more tiles in that area, so that you have it all open above the drum it and a little bit more around that.

Then run down to your local building supplies store, and buy a package of "Owens Corning OC-703". That is semi-rigid insulation. Get the 4" thick stuff if they have it, or get 2" if that's all they have. It comes in panels that measure 4 feet by 8 feet. Cut pieces to fit in between the joists up there (you can use a bread knife to cut it, but do wear gloves, mask and eye protection while you work with it). Put in a few layers between the joists over that entire area above the drum kit, to make it thick, then lean one full 4" panel up against the wall on each side of the drum kit, and put one full 4" panel diagonally across each of the rear corners of the room (floor to ceiling).

Then do another recording, to see how different it sounds...

If you like the way it is working out, then make simple wooden frames for the panels on the walls and in the corners, cover them with some nice fabric, and hang them on the walls. If you want, also put fabric across the empty gaps in the ceiling, where the tiles were, so it doesn't look so ugly.

That should fit into your budget, and should make a pretty decent difference to the sound of the recordings. If you then want to improve it even more, that would be possible too, but with a larger investment...

One other thing: you might also want to try the "Recorderman" mic placement technique... It's very useful for loud and/or reverberant spaces, as it minimizes the number of mics on the kit.

- Stuart -